Is Electromagnetic Radiation From Rooftop Solar Dangerous?

All electrical and electronic device create electromagnetic fields or EMF around them when used and also emit electromagnetic radiation or EMR. This includes solar panels and solar inverters. So is it possible for the electromagnetic fields or radiation from your rooftop solar system to harm you or your family?

Normally these type of questions have two answers — a short one and a long one. But today I’ll give you two short answers and then a long one.

Short Answer 1: Not at night.

Short Answer 2: Not in the day either.

Long Answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Or, as my first wife always used to say to me:

How can I be so confident? Well, my reasons are:

Australia has standards with a wide margin of safety for EMR emissions by electrical equipment and these apply to solar panels and inverters.

There is no good evidence from experiments using animals or observational studies of the humans1 that EMR exposure at permitted levels is harmful.

When I say there is no good evidence, I mean we can be confident beyond any reasonable doubt that EMR from rooftop solar and other household electrical devices is either not harmful or the negative effects are so small they are likely to be insignificant.

Now you might say, “Isn’t it reasonable to limit out exposure to EMR from electrical devices, just to be on the safe side?” And I would say, “No.”

While I think the people in charge of setting standards should make sure we aren’t exposed to unnecessary EMR, in our personal lives it is counter productive to worry about it. This is because we would be much better off putting our time and energy into avoiding things we know are bad for us, such as fast food, tiger snakes, and polka music.

If I’ve convinced you there’s no reason to worry you can stop reading now. But if you’re still concerned I’ll give a looooonger explanation below where I’ll throw in a few links to back me up. If after that you’re still not convinced at the end I’ll give some hints on how you can reduce your exposure to electromagnetic radiation. But I can’t tell you how to completely eliminate it, since that stuff is everywhere.

Oh my god! It’s coming through the walls!

What Is EMF And EMR?

Every particle with an electric charge creates an electromagnetic field or EMF. Since electrons and protons have charges, this means every atom in your body creates an EMF. Sure, there are also neutrons that are electrically neutral, but nobody likes them.

This means your body is no stranger to EMF. This force is inside all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us and it doesn’t bind the galaxy together — so you can’t always believe what desert hobos tell you:

But what people are generally concerned about is electromagnetic radiation (EMR). This ranges from extremely low frequencies, or ELF, which includes radio waves that can be tens of thousands of kilometers long, to some extremely rare, ultra high energy, cosmic rays which can have the energy of a bullet and wavelengths so short they need to use a step ladder to comb their hair.

Starting from longer and less energetic wavelengths and going to shorter, more energetic ones, EMR includes:

Radio waves: These allow you to listen to Justin Bieber in your car. Whether this is good or evil, only you can decide2.

Microwaves: Used for cooking and communications.

Infrared: Used by bar heaters to warm you up and by run of the mill remote controls to change the channel.

Visible light: Used by eyeballs for seeing.

Ultraviolet: Used by bees for seeing and our skin for synthesizing vitamin D and getting cancer.

X-rays: Used by doctors to see stuff inside you. Hopefully stuff that’s meant to be there.

Gamma rays: High energy radiation used for sterilizing — as in destroying bacteria. It will also do the other sort of sterilizing, but I don’t recommend it.

Cosmic rays: Extremely high energy radiation from space because space doesn’t like us.

So can these different types of EMR harm us?

Hell yes.

But we’re not talking about sunbathing in the Simpson Desert for 12 hours, becoming a contortionist and curling up inside a microwave oven, or traveling to Mars with only Elon Musk as radiation shielding. The type and amount of EMR emitted by our electrical devices is not enough to be harmful. At least not as far as we can tell.

EMR From Electrical Devices Is Non-Ionizing

I think the main reason people are concerned about electromagnetic radiation is they hear the “radiation” part and assume it is the same as the ionizing radiation released when a reactor core tried to leap through the roof in Chernobyl or when reactors in Fukushima got overly emotional and had a meltdown.

But EMR given off by solar panels and inverters is non-ionizing. This is also true for the little microwave emitter called a mobile phone that you probably regularly press against your brain bucket.

Non-ionizing radiation does not have enough energy to damage atoms and molecules by breaking them or stripping away their electrons. For example, visible light is non-ionizing radiation and chances are it is currently not killing you at the moment. If it is, then what’s probably happening is you are actually being shot with a “laser”.

If this is the case, the important thing to note as you die is, if the laser is visible light it’s not ionizing you, it’s mostly just burning you. I hope this knowledge provides you with some solace in your final moments.

For ionizing radiation there may be no minimum amount that is completely harmless for humans. But when it comes to non-ionizing radiation, as long as you take care not to cook yourself or get exposed to massive amounts, as far as we can tell it causes no harm. This is good news because we are exposed to a lot of non-ionizing radiation from natural sources all the time, such as the sun and atmospheric effects like lightning. That is, distant lightning. If lightning comes into actual contact with your body then you may suffer some ionization.

The standards are designed to ensure Australians are not exposed to EMR at levels that could be dangerous and have a considerable margin for safety.

There Is No Good Evidence Of Health Effects From Normal EMR Exposure

While it is definitely possible for EMR to be harmful there is no good evidence that exposure within the limits set by Australian standards poses a health risk. The International Commission On Non-Ionizing Radiation’s guidelines can be read here. While the language they use is cautious, they conclude that exposure within the limits they set is safe. You are not likely to be exposed to more than that in your normal life unless warming yourself up in front of a microwave communications dish is your idea of normal.

If you want to read an 83 page report on “Health Effects of Exposure to EMF” by the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, you can check it out here. While they recommend more research, they cannot conclude normal exposure to EMF and EMR affects health.

“In summary, when all of the studies are evaluated together, the evidence suggesting that EMFs may contribute to an increased risk of cancer is very weak.”

The conclusion also mentions there may be a link between occupational exposure to EMR at levels higher than average and Alzheimer’s disease, but again, the evidence is not very strong.

Just because we don’t have good evidence that normal levels of EMR from electrical devices are harmful doesn’t mean it is completely harmless. But if the health effects were severe we would definitely have noticed by now, so we can be quite sure it’s mostly harmless.

It’s definitely not a health risk like smoking which raises the chance of heart disease by 40% and lung cancer by 2,700%.

So while it makes sense for those setting standards to limit unnecessary exposure as a precaution, it doesn’t make sense for people to try to limit exposure in their day to day lives because we know it’s either harmless or mostly harmless and we’d be far better off putting our time and energy into avoiding things we know are harmful such as eating junk food, smoking, not exercising, and friending people on facebook who have a dagger tattooed on any part of their body3.

Rooftop Solar Should Expose You To Less EMR Than Other Devices

Are you reading this on a laptop or a mobile phone? Well you are almost certainly being exposed to more EMR from the device than your rooftop solar system. Lights, TVs, refrigerators… everything electrical in your home exposes you to EMR when it’s on. Even if you switch off everything in your house live electrical cables will still be emitting some EMR. It’s everywhere and the only way to completely avoid it from artificial sources is to do without electrical items and in that case you won’t be needing rooftop solar.

Your other appliances are likely to expose you to much more EMR because you probably spend far more time close to them than you do hugging your inverter. You aren’t likely to receive much EMR from Solar panels because, while the electrons in AC cabling are constantly wriggling back and forth 50 times a second and creating EMR at a frequency of 50 hertz, DC current doesn’t do this and instead forms a static electric field at 0 Hertz and so should produce very little EMR. Sure, you’ll still be walking through this static field, but the device you are reading this on also produces one, so unless you are willing to fling it away because you don’t want to take the tiny risk it will harm you, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

One Example Of Solar Panel EMR Causing A Problem

I can only think of one example of EMR from solar panels causing a problem and it was not with people’s health. The first generation of Maxim panel string optimized solar panels interfered with some people’s television reception. Generally it was only when the signal was weak to begin with. Maxim’s second generation technology should be available early next year and apparently fixes the problem.

How To Limit Exposure To EMR

Let’s say I’ve failed to convince you that your solar system is likely to expose you to less EMR than other electrical devices in your house and you want to take precautions. Well don’t worry. KFC has you covered with their finger licking good Faraday cage:

For just $10,000 US you can install your solar inverter in the Colonel’s internet proof enclosure where he will watch over it, unsleeping, for eternity. Of course, if you want to monitor your inverter performance online, you’ll have to open the door.

This chicken coop for humans works by blocking EMR from getting in or out. If you look carefully you’ll see its walls are made of metal mesh and if you look at the door of your microwave oven you’ll see there is also metal mesh on that4. Microwaves and longer wavelength EMR simply cannot fit through the small holes and so are blocked.

Of course, it’s not actually necessary to pay for a $10,000 Slenderman killing enclosure. You can use a metal cabinet or any fine mesh. Using mesh with holes wide enough to let your inverter internet connection work but small enough to block longer wavelengths is an option. But whatever you use, you will have to make sure it is adequately ventilated so your inverter doesn’t overheat.

A static electrical field from DC power is actually harder to stop. But your roof may already have aluminium sarking that could limit it. If your home doesn’t have this, you could try putting down a layer of aluminium foil in your roof space, but it’s probably easier to just make a nice little hat from it.

Footnotes

I too, also am human. We must get together sometime and do human things like metabolize pyruvate. This is one of my favorite human things to do. ↩

Related

Many years ago now, Ronald Brakels was born in Toowoomba. He first rose to international prominence when his township took up a collection to send him to Japan, which was the furthest they could manage with the money they raised. He became passionately interested in environmental matters upon his return to Australia when the local Mayor met him at the airport and explained it was far too dangerous for him to return to Toowoomba on account of climate change and mutant attack goats. Ronald then moved to a property in the Adelaide Hills where he now lives with his horse, Tonto 23.

Comments

Thanks Ron. Our DAB+ Radio appears to suffer interference from some part of our PV and/or micro-inverter array. (This only happens in daylight; even a high full moon at midnight around the winter solstice fails to generate any solar power and I get no radio disturbance.)

During the day, the signal strength indicator histogram on the radio front panel oscillates with rapid and uniform periodicity, and one of my stations totally loses sound intermittently. This is harmful to me, as I am sure my blood pressure goes up…

Shutting down the inverter will soon show if it is the source of the interference. Alternatively you could just pick up the radio and put some more distance between you and the inverter and see if that reduces the interference.

While mucking around with a chicken wire Faraday cage would be an option, a better fix might be checking if a different radio avoids the interference or seeing if your station is online.

There is money to be made in modern day voodoo witch doctor medicine. The more things change the more things stay the same.

My mum has fallen for the EMF and EMR rubbish. She is now also on about “dirty electricity” being harmful to human health and that solar is the main culprit. As a consequence, she has now installed some devices that plug into the wall socket which supposedly filters the dirty electricity and cleans up the frequency. I am mighty sceptical! It has cost her around $1k to have an expert test her house as well as install the devices.

Hi Ronald, and thanks for all the great stuff you write.
There is one aspect to domestic EMR that I suspect may well be substantial and harmful, and that is if a person sleeps on a switched on electric blanket.
Amps are up to ten, but the big thing is proximity. EMR reduces with distance with the inverse square law, and this generally means we get very little from our power cables, except in the electric blanket scenario.
It’s not beyond reaonable to expect that ferromagnetic material such as iron in blood would physically react to a pole changing environment fifty times per second, all night long, and I once helped the health of a personal friend by teaching her to turn it off before retiring for the evening.
Your thoughts please. Signed: Not A Cracked Pot.

At this time we have no good evidence exposure to EMR at a level at the level received from an electric blanket is harmful. The magnetic field produced is far less than the under half a gauss average of the earth’s natural magnetic field. And while the earth’s magnetic field is stationary, red blood cells containing the iron compound haemoglobin are not and constantly tumble in the bloodstream. This means they are always are always dragging against the earth’s magnetic field and converting an extremely small amount of their motion of energy into heat. But this seems to cause us no harm, so I don’t think the far weaker non-stationary field from an electric blanket would be harmful and so far there is no good evidence that it is.

But it is generally recommended that electric blankets be turned off while sleep to reduce the chance of shock caused by a short circuit and over heating and dehydration.

By the way, it’s not just iron compounds that are affected by magnetism. Here’s a video of liquid oxygen being suspended by a magnet:

Interesting Ronald that you use Weird Al as an example of other things more dangerous than EMR. Both Weird Al’s parents died tragically in their lounge room at home from Carbon Monoxide poisoning from a poorly vented gas appliance fireplace. Electrical interference paranoia is a typical disproportionate response by human wankers who worry incessantly about things like redback spiders, crocs and sharks while ten-times the fatalities happen from people being kicked in the head or thrown from horses and show ponies. Or like Asians who prize their children above all else, except for when a family of five will get on a motor scooter, without helmets and travel long distances on busy streets. Still, your article is a good try!

G’day Ronald, anything we can do to reduce or eliminate non-purposeful EMR has to be a Good Thing from the standpoint of conserving whatever resources we may have at our disposal.
A trite example: government entities spend millions on keeping our streets well-lit, but every photon that travels skyward is a photon wasted by its not being available to let someone see his/her mates/enemies down the street. Who’s paying?
More to the point, when our appliances, tools, lights, power regulation gear,… radiate emit tiny amounts of EMR that is a waste to some degree. The rules of thermodynamics may dictate that there has to be some waste, but not trying hard enough to keep that waste to a minimum costs $$$ (and maybe lives).
Is the waste harmful?
The increasing “background-noise” or “electrosmog” experienced by those who use radio communications (YES! your ‘smart’ phone’s a transceiver!) makes low energy communication less easy.
A phone’s ability to output a greater signal when it has difficulty ‘reaching’ a tower also depletes its battery more quickly. The higher the noise-level or the lower the received signal the greater the power the phone will use in an attempt to get through. “112” or “000” with an unexpected flat battery anyone?
Cricket tragic? Try listening to your favourite ABC city broadcast of a game while escaping the rat-race by going beyond the black stump. It’s getting harder to do…all those clever switch-mode devices built while shaving $$ are at least partly to blame.
The various inverters used in solar-power systems can be culprits when not used thoughtfully.
Their harm may not be immediate or direct to any one person, but we’d all be better off ($$- and safety-wise) without the unintentional crud emitted by poorly implemented systems.

My 6 APS mini / micro inverters generate enough RFI to nuke both TV and radio in the house even on cloudy days. I had to relocate the main aerial to be way off axis and also further away. Needless to say, the next upgrade will see the APS’s consigned to the 240l filing cabinet. The joys of a partially shaded house.

Hi Recently had a 16-panel system with micro inverters fitted, from the moment it was commisioned our bedside touch lamps which are on the inside of the same wall that the power box etc is mounted keep on turning themselves on, they sit on bedside tables adjacent to the wall, if I take them into a different room they operate normally.
Any answers?
Thanks
Robert

Does this happen during the night? If it’s happening during the day then I guess it’s possible there is some kind of interference going on. But if it’s happening at night, then it won’t be the microinverters and you may want to consider calling the Ghostbusters.

Which way do your inverters get monitored? There are basically three alternatives – wireless (probable RFI), power line (almost certain gremlins) and standard network cable (usually no issues). Some inverters actually still send modulated pulses down the power lines even if the actual monitoring is via cable and they cannot be altered easily (in the “what were they thinking” class of devices).

I’d reckon the capacitors in the tuning circuit of the lamp, sitting quietly waiting for the capacitive reactance to be changed by a human touch, are being tricked by a harmonic of the 50Hz produced by the micro inverters. This harmonic is an artifact of the inverter’s switching speed, and will be right through the whole system, though probably of small amplitude. One may use a tuned circuit to absorb it once it is identified.

Thanks for the reply. I truly wish it were that simple in my case. I fully filtered the mains and it did not help. I then tried mu-metal shielding around the inverters – problem solved, but no solar panel monitoring was possible (obviously). Moving the TV aerial fixed the interference once I worked out that the inverters were spraying RFI along the plane of their boxes… A true PITA. I am looking at replacing them with DC optimisers and hopefully can monitor them with “cat5/6 type” network cable in lieu of wireless. After all, the panels are cabled anyway to transfer their power… l am beginning to think that overuse of wireless is becoming endemic (i.e. wireless “security cameras” which still need to be powered by wires, any moderately informed geek can monitor their wireless output). We used to call it “a solution chasing a problem” in the IT industry.

This ignores all the carefully conducted case studies from people who actually get sick from some EMR frequencies. But don’t worry, those are sick people, we don’t need to listen to them. Australia’s radiation regulation bodies don’t, and regulation bodies are always right.

Yep – “some EMR frequencies” says it all. The range of measurable EMF is huge – that 3GHz range is actually stepless, not in integers. Unfortunately most of the “internet studies” I have seen have made no realistic attempt to work out which frequencies are involved and they rarely try to track down which devices are the culprits. Both are quite difficult to track down unless there is an easily detectable component.

As Ronald says – everything is involved in EMF at some level. Poorly isolated large transformers and arcing mains wiring (i.e. the higher power items in our community) are all too common as (for blindingly obvious reasons) the Oz standard cannot specify that the individual device is not actually faulty. Mind you, both of those are more likely to kill you by catching things alight (i.e. creating bushfires) rather than creating enough ionizing radiation to do you harm.

The other one – mobile phones – may be harmful in excess due to the limited distance between phone and brainpan. Minimising usage and using it handsfree reduces that risk to negligible. Attaching a phone to the earlobe 12+ hours per day is just mind boggling stupidity – EMF generates heat… some fries with that?

Hello,
My cousin is a farmer in France, they get buildings built for free in exchange for 25 years free roof top rent by small green electric companies.
After contacting French Agricole Body they were told that it was possible to fit them but mortility rates on live stock were up around 10% on buidings fitted with them why? these are gouvernment figures.

Funny that Randall didn’t reply to your comment.
He actually puts his trust in industry body, i.e. self-regulated. “safety” levels adopted by his government. These only take into account thermic effects, completely ignoring mutagenic effects on DNA and mitochondrial disregulation.

I wonder what Randall’s ties might be to industry – or has he simply bought into CO2 being toxic (hint: it’s essential to all life and is a coolant – it cannot heat the planet except in computer models).

No, it’s not funny at all I didn’t reply. I happen to be the Ronald Brakels who doesn’t know a damn thing about French stock mortality. Clearly you have me confused with Ronaldo Brakoli the Latin cattle morbidity maestro.

“It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.” (Cat in Hat – no tin foil)
Thought this might sober you up a bit: http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-health-blog/eesc-action-for-ehs/
international organisations like the Council of Europe or the WHO have established the existence of electromagnetic hypersensitivity as a health condition that can prevent people from exercising an occupational activity.

There are more and more people suffering from electromagnetic and environmental hypersensitivity syndrome. In addition, these people may sometimes suffer the incomprehension and scepticism of doctors who do not deal with the problem professionally.

When asked to describe the end result of ES, Dr. Rea said the syndrome most definitely telescopes into a fatal disease. He stated that ES has a genetic component waiting for a trigger, and that Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dead nerves in the brain, and heart arrhythmias are all examples of end results of ES patients left untreated.

I am not trying to be a dick here but, seriously I could spend the rest of my life listing things that are bad for our health. If you are so worried by EMR / EMF, you are on the wrong planet. Get out of the cities and remember NO power, not running water, NO SOLAR. …… should I go on…

Live life, be a good person, enjoy the time you have with your family ….. you have NO control how long you will be here but try and leave a good mark on the planet for those who come after you.

But beyond human health, there are other critical functional considerations around power products and systems (EMI/EMR/RFI) and they come under the industry umbrella headed EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility). EMC is a significant issue for all power products functionality and is the focus of many global standards (including IEC and AS/NZS Standards) that designers and manufacturers must adhere to.

Best practice design and manufactured inverters should be designed to minimise (EMI/EMR/RFI) I.A.W AS/NZS CISPR 11:2017 and be tested and certified with an EMC Certificate of Suitability.

The CEC approvals process for Inverter listings makes a point of pre-warning the industry that EMC is not yet a mandatory requirement for Inverters to be listed and the same situation applies to the State Regulators, but it is widely known within the inverter manufacturing industry, that the escalating threat of EMI is a growing issue, and will at some point become a mandatory requirement for Inverters in general. This is particularly relevant with new high power DC switching circuits and battery charging circuits (and EV’s) becoming standard practice.

Very few Inverter manufacturers design equipment to pass the onerous EMC CISPR 11:2017 standard to achieve the EMC Certificate of Suitability. It requires high spec components and circuits design which adds costs to the product development and manufacture. Also, the testing of prototype inverter models to AS/NZS CISPR 11:2017 alone is a 6-figure cost.

For all of the technocrats interested, here is a copy of the IEC EMC Standard AS/NZS CISPR 11:2017, and a copy of an Australian SAA EMC Certificate of Suitability.

There is no danger at all. People are exposed to far more electromagnetic energy from using normal household appliances. But I don’t think the typical person with a pacemaker should go up on a roof to clean solar panels. I don’t think most people should go up on roofs as there is always the risk of an accident.

Insects maybe are our new parakeets in the coal mine of emfr. Places where emfr is present seem to bother insects – and other life forms – they either behave differently, die off or move on. It might be worth it to keep an open mind while not losing your brains nor dismissing the possibility of problems with emfr.

I believe EMF’s have been shown to interfere with what’s known as Voltage Gated Calcium Ion Channels. Some studies have been conducted to show possible enhancement using some ranges of EMF’s https://www.nature.com/articles/srep21774 while other studies have been undertaken to show the detrimental effects…